Behavioural Medicine - optimising emotional health and understanding responses

what is emotional stability?

an individuals ability to remain emotionally stable and balanced

what is emotional capacity?

the level of emotional arousal that an individual can tolerate without significant or long lasting negative outcome

what is emotional valence?

the extent to which an emotion is positive or negative

what is emotional arousal?

the intensity of the emotional motivation

what is emotional resilience?

the ability to adapt to stressful situations. It does not eliminate stress or erase difficulties, but allows the animal to accept problems and move past adversity

what is the role of breeders in emotional stability?

• selection of breeding stock

• caring for pregnant bitches and queens

• early rearing of puppies and kittens

what is the role of guardians in emotional stability?

• providing an optimal physical and social environment according to species specific needs

• providing opportunity for beneficial learning

• rewarding appropriate decision making

• setting individuals up to succeed

what are examples of beneficial learning?

• classical conditioning

  • socialisation and habituation

  • house training

• operant conditioning

  • training

what is the size of sink (model for capacity for arousal) decided by?

individuals have different sized sink - there is a finite amount of emotional challenge that animals can withstand

• genetics of parents / relatives and emotional health of parents

• experiences < 7-8 weeks old

• experiences during their first year in life

What are examples of drainage (calming) behaviours?

• sleeping - in all species, but amount needed vary

• chewing - dog specific

• grooming - cat specific

What is the significance of drainage behaviours?

• when used well they ensure the residue in the sink is kept at manageable levels

• when animal in high state of emotional arousal they may engage in behaviours more intensely

What is displacement?

• behavioural equivalent of draining water through overflow rather than plug

• associated with high level of emotional arousal - full sink

• normal behaviours performed in unexpected context - shaking when wet, chewing feet, yawning

When is emotional overflow most likely?

• with low emotional capacity

• emotional disorder

• inappropriate physical or social environment

• poor emotional resilience

• people/owners not recognising or acting on signs of impending overflow

How to prevent emotional overflow?

• by optimising emotional health of individual

• by optimising understanding of those who interact with the animal

How to optimise emotional health of individual?

• creating adequate emotional capacity

  • appropriate breeding and rearing

  • positive life experiences

• establishing good socialisation and habituation

  • create positive associations with everyday stimuli

• creating optimal emotional resilience

  • encourage drainage behaviours - chewing, self directed relaxation

how to optimise understanding of those who interact with the animal

• understand emotional systems

• recognise need for pets to respond appropriately to emotional responses

  • allow social play with same species

  • allow avoidance when animal indicates its necessary

  • understand triggers of desire-seeking motivation and allow appropriate responses

• learn signs of increasing emotional arousal

• understand role of displacement activity

What are the possible behavioural responses to negative (protective) emotions?

• repulsion

• avoidance

• appeasement

• behavioural inhibition

What does repulsion behaviour involve?

• aim of behaviour is to increase distance from trigger and decrease interaction with trigger

• achieved by influencing the trigger to take action

• examples of behaviours:

  • growling / snarling

  • hissing

  • air snapping / swiping

  • biting

What does avoidance behaviour involve?

• aim of behaviour is to increase distance from and decrease interaction with trigger

• achieved by individual taking action to achieve these aims

• examples of behaviours:

  • bolting on walks if loud sounds

  • moving away from people who want to engage with pet

  • taking wide berth around other dogs

  • hiding from visitors

How are avoidance strategies often compromised with domestic pets?

• dogs on leads

• dogs in crowded social environments

• cats in carriers

• well intentioned caregivers attempting to help their pet confront its fear

What does the appeasement behaviour involve?

• aim of behaviour is to increase availability of information about the trigger

• achieved by interacting to gather information about the trigger, and offer signs of non-hostility

• example behaviours:

  • jumping up at people

  • attention seeking

  • urination on greeting

What does behavioural inhibition involve?

• aim of behaviour is to increase availability of information about the trigger

• achieved by passively gathering information about trigger without delivering any information in return

• can be misinterpreted as individual being relaxed or resting

What is the use of information gathering strategies?

What are examples of combinations of behavioural responses?

How does intensity of response affect the behaviour is interpretated?

Is repulsion or avoidance the same as fight or flight?

no

different axis used

fight or flight isn’t a conscious behaviour